Food in Carinthia
When people in Carinthia talk about "noodles" what they mean, first and foremost, are small pouches of filled pasta. According to the type of filling, these are known variously as Kasnudeln (curd cheese noodles), Erdäpfelnudeln (potato noodles), Fleischnudeln (meat noodles), Mohnnudeln (poppy seed noodles), etc. Kletzennudeln - or "scheckige Nudeln" ("speckled noodles"), as they are sometimes called - are filled with chopped cooked dried pears flavoured with honey and cinnamon.
In Carinthia, the classic cake for festive occasions, Sundays and holidays is the Reinling. An even more elegant version of this is baked for important religious festivals (Easter, for example) and special secular occasions like wedding receptions. The cake gets its name from the type of large shallow pan - Rein - in which it is baked. Starting at the outer edge, the filled yeast strudel dough is arranged on the bottom of the pan in the form of a spiral in such a way as to avoid leaving a hole in the middle. The wedding Reinling, on the other hand, has to have an empty space at the centre to make room for the traditional ornamental ribbons and floral decorations. A special Reinling pan with a wide built-in straight-sided funnel - or, failing that, a normal pan with an inverted tumbler set in the middle - is used in order to keep the necessary space free. The decoration of cakes with flowers and ribbons on extra special occasions, the kind of ornamentation we also come across on fancy Biedermeier cakes and Prügelkrapfen, is no doubt a relic of the grand baroque tradition. Prügelkrapfen (club doughnuts) are doughnuts made up of individual layers of cooked batter. They are made by pouring a steady stream of batter on to a wooden club (rather like a rolling-pin) rotated over an open fire; as the club turns, the batter directly exposed to the heat cooks straight away, with the result that a series of layers is built up.
A Jauntaler Saumagen is a pig’s stomach bag filled with well-seasoned minced meat; it is first boiled for an hour and then baked in the oven for another two hours.
One local speciality that should be sampled on a visit to the Lavanttal is "Leberlan" (dumplings filled with meat of various kinds, then wrapped individualy in a piece of pig’s caul and pan-fried until golden-brown). Dempffleisch (thick slices of different types of highly-seasoned meat arranged in layers, barely covered with boiling water and stewed in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid) is a speciality of the Görschitztal. A traditional meal on the day of the kermis in the Gailtal is stuffed braised roulades of veal, pork or lamb; the stuffing is flavoured with specially aromatic herbs (basil, sage, lemon balm, tarragon). The 7-inch long roulades, heaped in a tapering mound, are served ceremoniously on a platter.
Styrian and Carinthian cookery have quite a lot in common. In Carinthia, just as in Styria, the basic ingredients of Ritscher (or Ritschert, as it is also called) are rolled barley and dried beans. This dish - one, incidentally, that was served as long ago as 1485 to the Bishop of Caorle - has remained popular to this day. In the Gailtal, pretzels filled with honey, blueberries or sugar are needed in order to put the finishing touches to any festive kermis spread.
